Friday, June 5, 2009

A collection of four sunny, beachy shades for summer! Less talk, more pics!

Banana Bandanna. Say "yellow" to this sunny shade! This is a very soft, buttery pastel yellow. Less muted/whitish than Nubar Lemon Sorbet. It looks like a creme, but it has a hidden shimmer. If you look closely in the bottle, you can see the shimmer, but you can't tell it's there on the nail.

If The Fuchsia Fits. ...Wear it! This one amazing red-pink fits all. This is kind of a hot pink leaning fuchsia shimmer with faint blue flash. The blue flash is what makes it interesting, but it's not as strong as other similar shades.

I'm His Coral-Friend. And he loves me in this rosy orange. This is a sheer-ish medium orange coral creme. I'm calling it a sheer creme, but it does seem a little jelly-ish.

Sea? I Told You! That you'd love this aquamarine dream. The stunner of the collection. This may be my favorite blue polish so far this year. It is fantastic. It's shimmery and sparkly and has this fantastic metallic micro-flake shimmer in it. If you look closely or view the full size, you can see the little sheer silver flakes in this. It has a hidden duochrome as well! It's invisible in sunlight, but in low light or artificial light this polish has a pink-purple duochrome effect. You can start to see the purple flash in the bottom of the bottle on the first picture. It's awesome.

The formula on these is not so good. I had a lot of trouble with them. It's like they went back to the old three-free formula! They're thick and runny at the same time. They're very sheer, all pictures are five coats, except Sea? I Told You! which is three coats. Four coats would have probably been fine, but I still had visible nail line and wanted to see how five coats looked. The formula on Banana Bandanna was particularly difficult- runny, sticky and thick but not horribly streaky like other yellows. I wonder what happened? It seemed like they were improving the formula more and more with each collection. The brushes, however, are awesome. I am madly in love with OPI's Pro-Wide Brush. I love being able to have one-stroke coverage. It really speeds up the process.

I have mixed feelings about this collection. One one hand, I'm super excited to see them do a gorgeous blue and yellow, but I'm disappointed in the thick formula. I'm sure it can be fixed with a few drops of thinner, but I'd rather not have to thin brand new polish on principle. The coral and fuchsia shades aren't even remotely unique, but they are very pretty.

Sea? I Told You! is honestly one of the prettiest blues in my collection. It has so much depth and sparkle, it's positively mesmerizing to look at. It's so cheerful and serene. The 'secret' duochrome is also a nice treat. It looks awesome at sunset, that's when the light hits the color just right to bring out the purple flash.

Banana Bandanna is also a welcome change, it's been a while since OPI did a pastel yellow... In fact... I'm not sure if I've ever seen OPI do a pastel yellow! Am I mistaken? Have they done a pastel yellow before? Even though the formula is bad, I love the color. I know a lot of people have been wanting Maybelline to bring back Banana Puddin', but Banana Bandanna has a very similar feel to it, soft banana pudding yellow.

Overall, I think this collection is half awesome and half plain. They're all perfect summer shades, but kind of similar to other OPI shades. Sea? I Told You! is a must have for any blue lover, and I'm contemplating ordering a backup, I love it so much.

Your pictures are gorgeous as always ! But this collection...I haven't decided yet what I think about it - the colors are very nice, but there isn't any color that you can say "wow" on, or any special color...they are all very nice and pretty, but the sheer part you mentioned....I didn't like that part..

Marianna, have you tried OPI Flashbuld Fuschia? That's my favourite bright pink with blue. But I'm still tempted to get this one as well! They all look so nice on you Scrangie that I end up wanting ones that I wouldn't usually!!